The grandfather was a Holocaust survivor at age 13. The opportunity to celebrate his bar mitzvah had been crushed along with everything he loved and knew. Scarred and alone, he declared that his sons would never have a bar mitzvah. But Lev Yehudi was there when his grandson turned 13, and the son said ‘why not?” to his son having a bar mitzvah. And then he too decided to have his first aliya, and his bar mitzvah, on the same day that his son was called up to the Torah.

The Seymour J. Abrams Jerusalem World Center, headquarters of OU Israel, is a hub of Torah study, Jewish culture and spiritual growth. The center provides a warm, embracing environment, spiritual inspiration, and a familiar social framework for Anglo olim.